Airbnb Wants to Become a Business Travel Mainstay — Corporate Travel Innovation Report

Andrew Sheivachman, Skift

- Jun 09, 2016 12:00 pm

Skift Take

Airbnb has realized that if it’s going to make serious inroads in corporate travel, it’s going to have to develop better tools and capabilities to make life easier for those who book travel for others.

— Andrew Sheivachman

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The Future of Corporate + Business Travel

Airbnb announced this week that it will continue its slow embrace of the corporate travel ecosystem, as it will now allow internal travel buyers and assistants to book business travel for their coworkers.

Airbnb’s head of global payments and business development Lex Bayer told Skift that the new capabilities are a direct result of requests from its biggest corporate partners. Still, however, traditional travel agents and travel management companies themselves won’t have access to these tools.

It will be interesting to see how forward-thinking travel buyers and managers react to the news, compared to their more risk-averse peers.

As alternative accommodations become more popular among business travelers, this new capability will help build the conversation around embracing sharing economy services despite safety and visibility concerns.

— Andrew Sheivachman, Skift

Social Quote of the Day

lol our corporate travel agent said LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU to me over the phone someone put her in jail –@_buupy

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